Progressing in technology

MORRISON, Ill. — Milking technology has shifted dramatically at the Cook family’s farm since 1985. Starting in a stanchion barn, the Cooks transitioned to a parlor and then a robotic milking system in 2022.

“Of those three options, I like robots the best,” Adam Cook said.

Cook and his dad, John, milk 120 cows with two Lely A4 robots and farm 400 acres near Morrison. Cook’s mom, Joyce, and his wife, Nicole, help as well.

“We have two little boys at home who keep my wife rather busy,” Cook said.

The Cooks bought two refurbished robots from a farm that had used the robots for seven years and wanted to swap them out for the A5 model.

“Buying used made it economical for us to get started,” Cook said.

The Cooks retrofitted the robots into their former holding area in the exterior wall of the freestall barn. They also added an office and robot room.

“The retrofit helped keep costs down a lot and lowered our investment in robotics,” Cook said.

The Cooks were milking 60 cows in a stanchion barn when Cook returned to the farm in 2012 after graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. He and his dad worked their way up to milking 90 cows in a barn with 22 stalls.

Tired of switching the barn four times over, the Cooks built a double-10 parlor in 2015. Before that, a freestall barn was built in 2013, and cows moved from loafing sheds to their new accommodations. The herd grew to 145 milking while in the parlor.

“The parlor offered greater efficiency,” Cook said. “Trying to milk more in the stanchion barn wasn’t cutting it. It was very labor intensive. We were always running cows in and out.”  

The parlor held its appeal for seven years, before the Cooks switched milking methods once again.

“My dad was doing 98% of the milking and spending lots of time in the parlor,” Cook said. “We needed to make a change. We looked at a couple of robot farms and thought they were pretty cool. Our vet at the time said robots were the best thing he ever saw for cow health and udder health.”

The Cooks’ parlor was a steppingstone to robots. The parlor is no longer in use, with all cows in the Holstein and Holstein-Jersey cross herd going through the robots.

“Robots let you take it a step further as far as getting more milk and being more efficient,” Cook said. “The data is astonishing. It has helped with repro and animal health. We really catch the sick ones a lot quicker.”

Cook said behavior tracking has been a benefit.

“If a cow is sick, we see a drop in rumination, and I get a message on my phone,” Cook said. “Also, the somatic cell count on the readers helps us manage our quality of milk better, and we’ve seen a drop in cell count compared to previous milking methods. We are able to keep track of everybody — who stays, who goes, who gets treated — which helps a lot.”

Cows average 2.9 milkings per day in the robots, and Cook said production has gone up.

“The robots helped us weed out cows that didn’t deserve to be here,” Cook said. “We weren’t testing milk in the parlor, and cows that we thought were doing good just took a long time to not give a lot of milk. We have also phased out cows with high somatic cell counts.”

When considering robots, Cook said dairy producers should visit other farms to get an idea of what works and what does not.

“If you’re going to go to robots, it’s a commitment,” he said. “Cow flow is key. Avoid odd placements of the robots.”

Cows at the Cook farm enter the robot from the right-hand side, and both robots face the same direction. Cows are housed in one group in a free-flow system.

“We have a fetch pen we use twice a day; otherwise, we’re not fetching a lot,” Cook said. “It is mostly cows late in lactation or that have a sore foot as well as a few cows that are just lazy. The only thing I would have changed about our setup is to make the office bigger.”

Cook said having a nutritionist who knows how to feed a robot herd is crucial.

“The ration is balanced to feed a portion of energy through the robot to drive cows there,” he said. “That’s how you get the extra visits — by cows coming to look for the pellet. But you don’t want to feed more than you have to or it will increase feed costs.”

The Cooks also have an automatic feed pusher, which Cook said pays for itself, pushing up feed every hour except at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.

“My dad sometimes misses milking cows, but it was a lot of hard years on his body,” Cook said. “He used to enjoy the stanchion barn when it wasn’t four turns at a time.”

The farm went through multiple phases to get to a point where father and son feel prepared for the future. Cook is the second generation on the farm, which is owned by his parents. Cook owns 40% of the herd, and he and his parents co-own the equipment.

“The plan is for me to take over,” Cook said. “With robots, we’re in a real good position for the future.”